So, last time I talked about tuning in to how you feel and start paying constant attention to that. This goes for everyone out there, but particularly for those dealing with diseases that you are trying to rise above or stay ahead of because your doctor would just love to put you on yet another prescription drug. If you are reading my blog for the first time, starting with this post, I am writing a series on disease control, how to take responsibility for your own wellbeing, how to partner with your doctors, instead of blindly take certain advice and/or prescriptions they try to write for you. It’s okay to ask questions, get second opinions, and in some cases just say no.
This blog, paying attention part II, is about nutrition. In many cases nutrition is more important than exercise because so much of how we feel comes from what we put in our fuel tanks. What’s better, is to find a way to pay attention to both in concert for a more complete positive lifestyle change, but it all starts with nutrition. This again, is an area in which physicians have not been well educated in the past. I know with the popularity of Dr. Oz on Oprah has spurred more physicians to pursue more nutrition knowledge beyond their medical degrees but please be cautious. I say this because physicians still don’t get many hours of nutrition and exercise instruction in pursuit of medical degrees. But many patients don’t realize or are so afraid to question anything their doctors say/prescribe that they blindly follow every instruction given. And sometimes those instructions touch on areas in which they are not well informed in – nutrition and exercise.
As I said in part one of this blog, if I were to blindly take all of the advice my physician had given me I would have totally ruined what little health I had left with a high protein diet and exercising 7 days per week for 2 hours per day – yes, this was my Endocrinologists prescription for my weight gain. Let’s put aside all the different ways this advice – if I had followed it – would have killed me and focus on just the high protein diet. High protein diets are very effective for weight loss. But at the very foundation of the diet is that “any” protein is acceptable, which spurred an epidemic of high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and heat attacks from people overdosing on good old fashioned pork bacon.
Now, I know that I spend a lot of time seemingly physician-bashing, this is not my intent. I simply want to make sure you enter all situations regarding your health with eyes wide open. If you have read my other posts this next statement will tie in, if you have not it will still make sense. Did you know that back when the high-protein diets were the latest fad diet within a short period of time prescription drugs for high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and bypass surgeries rose significantly? Before my doctor tried to coax me onto a high protein diet I had never heard of statins such as Lipitor, Crestor, or Zocor. If I would have followed my doctor’s advice, on top of dealing with the day-to-day symptoms of Hashimoto’s disease, within only months I would have most likely had a heart attack while running on my treadmill one of the seven days pre week I was to exercise. Can you say Oxymoron?
Who in their right mind would follow the kind of diet and exercise regime designed to make you sicker? Unfortunately, many of my personal training clients (before they came to see me in desperate attempt to reverse all that had gone wrong) and my friends. One of my friends who jogged daily but had a stressful job had gone on one of the high protein diets to loose a few extra pounds. Eight months later, he had lost the weight he wanted to but was diagnosed with high cholesterol and was prescribed a statin to “get it under control.” I begged him not to fill the prescription but to continue with his exercise regime and make better food choices. I explained to him that unless he had some physiological condition where his body just packs arteries for no apparent reason or their was an immediate threat of stroke or heart attack, he could get his cholesterol numbers down with proper nutrition. I also walked him through how statins trick the bodies normal cholesterol production, the importance of that production, and how the eventual zero production from the statins trickery leads to even worse “permanent” conditions. I cannot caution enough against prescription drugs – if they can be avoided, then please avoid them. They have this nasty habit of systematically destroying one’s health one system at a time. Unfortunately, if you are not one to take responsibility for your own health, your doctor is only too happy to prescribe drug after drug to mask the pain, condition, symptom you came to him or her to resolve – that is the reality of their training. There is a better solution.
The better solution is to partner with your physician, have two-way conversations, question why they feel you need to fill this or that prescription and/or ask if there are any ways nutritionally you can combat what ever is going on. Remember that everything regarding the human body is all about taking a balanced approach, for example: not too much or too little of any one element within the food chart, protein, fruits, vegetables, fats; don’t follow fad diets because they always seem to focus on one or two food items, anyone remember the grapefruit diet or the cabbage soup diet?
If your physician has recommended that you make some changes or need some sort of prescription that you just aren’t sure about, ask about lifestyle changes or ask for some time to see if you can turn things around with proper nutrition first. Get yourself truly tuned in to how you feel after every meal and start making small adjustments. One of the harder ones I see as a personal trainer is stopping an addiction to soda. I never recommend a “cold turkey” approach. I have them make small adjustment, for example, instead of starting their day with a Big Gulp, I suggest that they buy the next smaller ounce size than their usual.
One thing I see regularly in my personal training clients and have had personal experience with is that many times we crave foods that are not good for us or that we are “technically” allergic to and over time that food chips away at our health. For example, before my Hashimoto’s diagnosis, I was a person who loved training with weights in the gym. Nutritionally, for me at least, after a good heavy workout, I would crave beef. I would justify this craving for beef because I had just worked out, I burned-off many of the nutrients in beef during my workout and a steak for dinner 3 times per week was just the thing to replace all that I had burned off. As I got older, I noticed more and more I didn’t feel well after eating a meal that included beef. I did some reading and found the book “Eat Right for Your Type” by Dr. Peter J. D’Adamo – a book geared toward eating according to your blood type. It was interesting at least for me because I realized that I have a rare and relatively young blood type and that beef is not a good choice for me. In keeping with the balanced approach I try to teach my training clients I started to make a few changes to my diet according to the author’s suggestions. After some time making single changes then more adjustments to my diet over time, I can tell you that I do feel more healthy today, even with Hashimoto’s disease, than I did in my twenties. I have had some clients who craved edamame beans, loved to come home from work and have a plate of them as an appetizer or one person craved avocados and another loved and couldn’t get enough of picked beets. These clients had healthy eating and moderate exercise habits but came to me because they started gaining weight or just not feeling as if their otherwise healthy regimes were working anymore in giving them energy and stamina to get through busy days. After asking some questions and doing some digging I found that the two that craved edamame beans and avocados where actually allergic to the foods and over time the buildup of the food in their system due to the allergy started to effect them physically. The woman that loved and even craved pickled beets actually needed to avoid beets all together because from a relatively early age she was susceptible to kidney stones – had her first attack at age 17. What her body was really needing was the iron in the beets – iron she was otherwise not getting from other food sources.
The lesson here is to pay attention, take a balanced approach to nutrition, and even be careful and analyze cravings for certain foods. Also, at every opportunity ask if there is a way to combat any of the conditions or diseases that your physician finds with nutrition and lifestyle changes. Prescription drugs in many cases will only cover symptoms while undermining your overall health and necessitating the next and the next prescription your doctor writes.
Please take responsibility and take care.
#UMASSPRSM
Equitable Muse 